The Gazprom Management Committee addressed operating results of the Company's subsidiaries over the autumn/winter 2012–2013 period (from October to March) as well as the measures required for uninterrupted gas supply to consumers in the autumn/winter 2012–2013 period.

The meeting highlighted that Gazprom Group had secured a sustainable gas supply to Russian consumers as well as export gas deliveries.

In order to ensure reliable operation of the Unified Gas Supply System (UGSS) in the autumn/winter 2013–2014 period the Management Committee tasked the specialized structural units and subsidiaries with the following assignments:

• stockpile at least 69.02 billion cubic meters of operating (marketable) gas reserves in Russian underground gas storage (UGS) facilities and 0.92 billion cubic meters in Belarusian UGS facilities, an increase by 2.74 billion cubic meters (4 per cent) and by 0.06 billion cubic meters (7 per cent) accordingly versus the same period of 2012;
• implementing the Basic Guidelines on preparing Gazprom's subsidiary facilities for operation during the autumn/winter 2013–2014 period;
• performing scheduled preventive maintenance and repair work at gas production, transmission, underground storage and processing facilities; preparing transportation vehicles and specialized equipment for winter operation.

Background

In 2012 Gazprom performed the full scope of the scheduled preventive maintenance and repair operations at the UGSS facilities.

Stagewise development of production capacities allowed setting last year the daily gas production record over the past five years – 1.657 billion cubic meters.

Intense retrofitting and expansion of Russian UGS facilities made it possible to boost their potential. In particular, the daily withdrawal rate of 670.7 million cubic meters of gas was reached on December 20, thus hitting the record in the entire Russian UGS history. This corresponds to the maximum possible daily deliverability at the withdrawal season startup (671.1 million cubic meters). The peak withdrawal rate from Russian storages exceeded 39 per cent of gas consumption within the Unified Gas Supply System.